As optical systems continue to increase the volume and speed of information communicated, the need for methods and apparatus operable to facilitate high speed optical signal processing also escalates. Current optical router designs typically require either limiting the number of line cards to a relatively small number thereby significantly limiting the router's capacity, or implementing numerous line cards but requiring optical-to-electrical and electrical-to-optical conversions at the switching fabric serving the line cards. These conversions result in reduced router speed and typically require significant system resources for storage and management during conversion.